Code reviewed by WIRED uncovered an unreleased face-recognition system embedded in Meta’s smart glasses platform. It’s designed to identify people via biometric data stored on users’ phones.
That is fundamentally true, yet European law and the respective national constitutions set limits on unwarranted mass surveillance. Lobbyists for tech companies—especially American ones, led by Palantir—are working tirelessly to erode these limits, thought.
Under the status quo, however, the scale of surveillance is currently in no way comparable to that in China or the U.S., as there are still legal limits in place—at least for the moment—that are also enforced, albeit only in a basic sense.
This makes it all the more important to preserve these rights and to advocate for them. It is not helpful to equate conditions in Europe with those in the US, as this creates the impression that insisting on existing law is a futile endeavor.
That is precisely why regulations such as the GDPR are so important; among other things, they set limits on automated facial recognition at the European level.
As I said, these regulations are under constant attack, especially from the U.S.
Nevertheless, all is not lost here, and these regulations are indeed being enforced, since the European legal system actually still functions quite well. Here, too, it makes no sense to draw a comparison with the U.S.
Just because the U.S. system is so obviously corrupt that it can no longer fulfill its purpose doesn’t mean it’s the same in other parts of the world. U.S. billionaires have a keen interest in this, and they’re supported by the corresponding elite in Europe as well, but the world in Europe is actually quite different. While you can buy a lot of things here too, European nations are not an obvious oligarchy. The US, on the other hand, has been a de facto oligarchy for several decades. The current regime, through its utter unscrupulousness, simply makes this fact much more obvious than previous administrations did.
That is fundamentally true, yet European law and the respective national constitutions set limits on unwarranted mass surveillance. Lobbyists for tech companies—especially American ones, led by Palantir—are working tirelessly to erode these limits, thought.
Under the status quo, however, the scale of surveillance is currently in no way comparable to that in China or the U.S., as there are still legal limits in place—at least for the moment—that are also enforced, albeit only in a basic sense.
This makes it all the more important to preserve these rights and to advocate for them. It is not helpful to equate conditions in Europe with those in the US, as this creates the impression that insisting on existing law is a futile endeavor.
We’ve all gotten to see how fast legal limitations collapse. You have a million cameras and facial recognition. The law part is skin deep.
That is precisely why regulations such as the GDPR are so important; among other things, they set limits on automated facial recognition at the European level.
As I said, these regulations are under constant attack, especially from the U.S.
Nevertheless, all is not lost here, and these regulations are indeed being enforced, since the European legal system actually still functions quite well. Here, too, it makes no sense to draw a comparison with the U.S.
Just because the U.S. system is so obviously corrupt that it can no longer fulfill its purpose doesn’t mean it’s the same in other parts of the world. U.S. billionaires have a keen interest in this, and they’re supported by the corresponding elite in Europe as well, but the world in Europe is actually quite different. While you can buy a lot of things here too, European nations are not an obvious oligarchy. The US, on the other hand, has been a de facto oligarchy for several decades. The current regime, through its utter unscrupulousness, simply makes this fact much more obvious than previous administrations did.